Gov. Sam Brownback appointed three people to the Kansas Board of Regents on Friday, and enlisted them in a quest to improve the state's college and university rankings.

Brownback said Goodland attorney Joseph Bain, former Garnett area legislator Bill Feuerborn and Sedan attorney Zoe Forrester Newton will be the right people to help raise the profile of the state's seven public universities, 19 community colleges and six technical colleges.

"We aspire to be the best state in America and to do that you really need high-quality education, K-12 and higher," Brownback said.

To that end, Brownback said the state must continue pushing its institutions up in the rankings of services that examine higher education.

U.S. News and World Report currently ranks the University of Kansas 47th among the top public universities nationwide. Kansas State University ranks 68th.

Brownback said the University of Kansas' schools of Business, Medicine and Law had all "jumped substantially" in recent years in rankings of individual schools.

Newton said she's not sure about the methodology of rankings such as those in U.S. News and World Report, or how well they reflect the true experience of students. But she knows the rankings are important to parents when they help make decisions about their children's futures.

Bain said the rankings mission should begin with first identifying each public institution's mission.

While the state's research universities are doing important work, he said the economic "lifeline" the technical colleges provide small communities should not be overlooked.

Bain said it would take a mix of approaches to improve the rankings.

"There's always room for improvement," Bain said. "Some of that has to do with funding. Some of that has to do with accountability and transparency."

Feuerborn is a Democrat whose 18-year legislative career ended when he was defeated after the 2012 session. His party has advocated more state funding for higher education, but Feuerborn said he wouldn't go to the board with any single, preconceived mission.

"I don't have a bone to pick with what the Regents have been doing," Feuerborn said.

Brownback said the state had added $50 million to regents schools during his tenure, targeting funds to areas like engineering, the KU Medical School's doctor training facility and technical education. He said he wants the state to continue stable funding and enlist the board's help in ensuring it is spent wisely.

"I think it's going to be up to these folks as well to figure out how we're going to make the most of the budgets we have," Brownback said. The board of regents appointments require confirmation by the state Senate next year, with the new members serving through June 2018.

The nine-member board oversees state universities, community colleges and technical colleges. The state spends almost $2.6 billion annually on higher education.

The terms of three regents expired at the end of June. Those regents were Mildred Edwards, of Wichita, Tim Emert, of Independence, and Ed McKechnie, of Arcadia.

Edwards is executive director of the Kansas African-American Affairs Commission.

Emert is a former Kansas Senate majority leader, and McKechnie formerly served in the Kansas House.

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How about adequately funding the state universities so their rankings don't continue to slide? Every year Governor Brownback has been in office, he has suported cuts to state funding for state universities. Every year cuts have been made. The obvious outcome is for programs to be cut, for qualfied staff to leave, for facilities to not be adequately maintained and for tuition to be hiked substantially. All of those occurrences negatively impact where our universities fall in the national rankings. Not sure what magic Gevernor Brownback expects his appointees to pull off to undo the harm done to our state universities on his watch.